Pixel is the simplest idea on the site and one of the hardest to do quickly: a Pokémon character's artwork appears behind forty pixels of blur, and you have six guesses to name them. Every wrong guess sharpens the image one step.
At the start you are working from a silhouette — hair shape, a colour palette, the outline of a hat or a lab coat. By the fifth attempt the picture is almost clean, so the game is really a race against your own certainty: name them early from very little, or wait for the blur to lift and rank far lower.
How to play Pixel
Look at the blurred portrait and type a name. The search suggests up to eight characters with thumbnails from two letters onward, and Enter submits the first suggestion. Correct guesses turn green, wrong ones turn red and are listed under the image.
The blur drops on a fixed ladder — forty pixels, then thirty-two, twenty-four, sixteen, eight, and finally none — so the sixth and last attempt is always made on a completely clear image. A readout under the picture tells you where on that ladder you are.
It is one puzzle per day per difficulty, reset at midnight UTC, with the previous six days available from the calendar once today is done. The daily leaderboard ranks by time, and your day streak only survives if you actually name the character.
Reading a blurred portrait
Read colour blocks before shapes. At forty pixels the only reliable information is where the light and dark masses sit and what colour they are — a red cap over black hair, a blue jacket, an orange body — and those blocks identify a character far more often than a guessed facial feature does.
Use the crop. Portraits are cropped to the top of the artwork and scaled up, so what you are seeing is a head and shoulders: hair silhouette, headwear and collar are all doing more work than the face.
Spend an early guess on a character who looks like what you are seeing rather than on your best guess overall. A wrong name that shares the palette costs one attempt and buys a whole blur step, and on the hard board — where the answer comes from the deeper roster rather than the headline cast — that trade is usually the right one.
Frequently asked questions
How many guesses do I get in Pixel?
Six. Each wrong guess removes one step of blur, so the final attempt is always on a fully clear image.
How blurred is the first image?
Forty pixels of blur, which leaves colour and silhouette but almost no detail. It drops to thirty-two, twenty-four, sixteen, eight and then zero.
Is there a new character every day?
Yes, at midnight UTC, and once you finish today you can play the last six days from the calendar.
What is the difference between the two difficulties?
Easy pulls from the best-known characters and Hard from the rest of the roster. Each has its own portrait, its own streak and its own leaderboard on the same day.
Does refreshing give me a fresh image?
No. Your guesses and the current blur level are saved, so reloading returns you to exactly where you were.